I frowned at her.
But she continued without pausing. “Strangely, there’s rarely ever been two at the same time. The last recorded case I found was a woman named Julia Evanston. She died a day before Eva’s mom was diagnosed. And the case before her? The same. One dies, another gets diagnosed. Usually right at birth. It goes back like that for awhile. The only weird thing is, Eva’s mom didn’t get diagnosed until she was an adult. And it was the day Eva was born.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, my cheeks growing hot. “Have you beenresearchingmy illness?”
The things she said I already knew. I’d done my own Googling when Mom told me her diagnosis. But I’d never shared the info with anyone else. I never felt like I should. For some reason, I’d thought of it as Mom’s secret, even though it was now my burden to bear.
“Thatisodd,” Stolas said with a glint in his eye. I’d seen that look on him before. Sheer curiosity that wouldn’t be satiated by anything but answers. Answers about me.
I fisted my hands. “This is making me uncomfortable. Can we please talk about something else? You know, like the demon cult we’re supposed to be stopping?”
“Unfortunately, Eva,” Caim said softly. “It seems like your illness might be important to the Cult of Lilith.”
“You’re wrong. Okay?” I met his eyes across the room. Dark pools glimmered back at me. “Whatever the cult wants, it has nothing to do with that. It’s something else. And I would honestly appreciate if we could just drop it.”
I fought to keep the tears at bay. The last thing I wanted to do was break down into a sobbing puddle in front of the entire Legion. My emotions were all over the place, but I needed to keep my shit together. It was next to impossible to do that when it came to the loss of my mom.
Stolas opened his mouth, but Sarah gave him a quick shake of her head. “I think Eva has told us as much as she can.”
His lips slammed shut, but he shot Caim a questioning glance. And I knew without looking that he didn’t want to drop it yet. I could feel his eyes boring into me. He was convinced there was something wrong about my illness, and a small part of me deep down inside knew it was true. It was the only thing that made sense.
My illnesswasstrange. It wasn’t normal. There were things about it that most doctors couldn’t make sense of. That was why I’d been referred to a specialist. Dr. Wilkes had always been the only one who could help me. Dr. Wilkes, the man my mother had begged me to run from. A strange flutter went through my belly, but I pushed it away.
Caim clenched his jaw. “Alright, let’s focus on our plan for the cult.”
I let out a sigh of relief that shook my entire body. The Legion immediately dropped the conversation and settled back into their chairs with a new round of beers. Sarah met my gaze while the planning began. We knew each other so well, and had for so long, that I could read her thoughts just by the way she blinked her eyes.
Are you okay?
I’m fine.
You know you can trust them.
I gritted my teeth and glanced away. Of course I could trust them. The problem was, I couldn’t trust myself to consider that what I’d always known might be a lie. That Mom’s warning had been real. That I’d ignored her.
My attention was quickly snatched away from Sarah when something clattered onto the floor. I swept my gaze to the noise and spotted what looked like an old ham radio. It crackled with static.
Phenex beamed. “Found the channel for the cops.”
I arched my brows. “That’s an actual thing you can do?”
“With the right machine, hell yes.” He pointed a beefy finger at the radio. “Sounds like the asshole cult didn’t attack anyone last night, but I doubt they’ll go another twenty-four hours without making some kind of move. We wait and we listen.”
Caim nodded. “So, that’s what you’ve been up to.”
“So, you think they’ll attack someone, the cops will spot it, and you’ll hear about it over the radio?” I asked.
“Bingo.” Phenex grinned, and punched his fist into his palm. “Then, we’ll take care of business.”
“Meaning...?” I couldn’t help but ask. After the earlier conversation, I was no longer convinced they’d “exterminate” the problem, and I was kind of glad for that. We were supposed to be the good guys. Brutally ending the lives of thirteen souls who had once been human didn’t seem like a heroic thing to do, even if they were monstrous demons now.
There was something so....vicious about it. Ruthless, violent, and cold. We obviously needed to stop them from killing anyone else—somehow—but was bloody destruction really the way forward? Caim had told me how to stop a demon. Rip out his heart, tear his body into pieces. And then scatter those pieces across the world so that they couldn’t find each other again and heal. They’d already done that to Andrea. Did they really need to do it toallof them?
Phenex gave me a blank stare, and then frowned at Caim. “Why’s she asking that question? I thought we were all on the same page.”
“Hmm.” Bael tipped back his chair to gaze up at the lofted ceiling. “Yeah, about that. I think we’re going to avoid the destruction route this time.”
“Um, what the fuck?” Phenex thundered. “Of course we go the destruction route. We have no other choice. These assholes are out there killing innocent humans. We have to stop them. For the good of the world.” He shoved his fingers into his ginger hair. “I mean, they’re trying to...”
